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Summary
Summary
Finalist for the 2018 National Council on Crime & Delinquency's Media for a Just Society Awards
Nominated for the 49th NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction)
A 2017 Washington Post Notable Book
A Kirkus Best Book of 2017
"Butler has hit his stride. This is a meditation, a sonnet, a legal brief, a poetry slam and a dissertation that represents the full bloom of his early thesis: The justice system does not work for blacks, particularly black men."
-- The Washington Post
"The most readable and provocative account of the consequences of the war on drugs since Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow . . . ."
-- The New York Times Book Review
"Powerful . . . deeply informed from a legal standpoint and yet in some ways still highly personal"
-- The Times Literary Supplement (London)
With the eloquence of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the persuasive research of Michelle Alexander, a former federal prosecutor explains how the system really works, and how to disrupt it
Cops, politicians, and ordinary people are afraid of black men. The result is the Chokehold: laws and practices that treat every African American man like a thug. In this explosive new book, an African American former federal prosecutor shows that the system is working exactly the way it's supposed to. Black men are always under watch, and police violence is widespread--all with the support of judges and politicians.
In his no-holds-barred style, Butler, whose scholarship has been featured on 60 Minutes , uses new data to demonstrate that white men commit the majority of violent crime in the United States. For example, a white woman is ten times more likely to be raped by a white male acquaintance than be the victim of a violent crime perpetrated by a black man. Butler also frankly discusses the problem of black on black violence and how to keep communities safer--without relying as much on police.
Chokehold powerfully demonstrates why current efforts to reform law enforcement will not create lasting change. Butler's controversial recommendations about how to crash the system, and when it's better for a black man to plead guilty--even if he's innocent--are sure to be game-changers in the national debate about policing, criminal justice, and race relations.
Author Notes
A former federal prosecutor, Paul Butler provides legal commentary for MSNBC and NPR and has been featured on 60 Minutes and profiled in the Washington Post. A law professor at Georgetown University, he is the author of Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice, winner of the Harry Chapin Media Award, and Chokehold: Policing Black Men (both from The New Press). He has published numerous op-eds and book reviews, including in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Washington, DC.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
"If this chapter reads like a nightmare, it is because that's exactly what the criminal system is for an African American man"a searing look at the interactions of law enforcement and black men by a former prosecutor.When it comes to the law, it seems, black men inhabit a different country than white men. Granted, as Butler (Law/Georgetown Univ.; Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice, 2009) writes, acknowledging "ugly facts," black men commit disproportionately more violent crimes, especially homicide, than Latino or white men, but they are also disproportionately likely to be victims of just those crimes. In any event, whites are far likelier to be victimized by other whites than by anyone else, even as black men, and especially young ones, are subject to what Butler calls the Chokehold: an entire system of justice that presumes their guilt and that is entirely geared to the suppression of an entire category of citizens. This system often works insidiously. As Butler writes, for instance, the Supreme Court has ruled that people with intellectual disabilities are not subject to the death penalty, because they may not be aware that they are committing crimes. However, prosecutors circumvent this by adding points to the IQ scores of minority criminals, playing on the nostrum that IQ measures traditionally discriminate against minority members and thereby raising the score of black men "enough for them to be executed." The author writes from experience, having been charged with a crime that he did not commit and that he was able to refute only by knowledge of the system. In a depressing inventory, he offers pointers for reducing black men's chances of being caught up in it, ranging from not wearing a hoodie ("when I put on a hoodie everybody turns into a neighborhood watch person") to avoiding red flags: "three or more black men in a car at any time," "black men raising their voices," and the like. Smart, filled rightfully with righteous indignation, and demanding broad discussion and the widest audience. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
CHOKEHOLD: Policing Black Men, by Paul Butler. (New Press, $26.95.) A law professor and former federal prosecutor argues in this readable and provocative book that releasing prisoners who are not dangerous would free up resources to combat the segregated poverty that underlies our criminal justice system. LESS, by Andrew Sean Greer. (Lee Boudreaux/Little, Brown, $26.) On the eve of his 50 th birthday and a former lover's wedding, a mediocre novelist takes refuge in literary invitations that enable him to travel around the world. The novel is smart, humane and laugh-out-loud funny. THE RETREAT OF WESTERN LIBERALISM, by Edward Luce. (Atlantic Monthly, $24.) Luce, a columnist for The Financial Times, employs fluid prose and telling statistics to argue that the tradition of liberty and democracy, and by extension the open international and economic system that has characterized the Western world since 1945, is under mortal threat. THE ANSWERS, by Catherine Lacey. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Funny, eerie and idea-dense, Lacey's novel features a woman hired by a team of researchers to perform the transactions that make up a romantic relationship for a famous actor. She is "Emotional Girlfriend," bound to affirm his opinions and text him often. WHO IS RICH?, by Matthew Klam. Illustrated by John Cuneo. (Random House, $27.) The protagonist of this challenging novel, a middle-aged illustrator, is a conflicted adulterer. Klam agilely balances an existentially tragic story line with morbid humor and self-assured prose. LIGHTS ON, RATS OUT: A Memoir, by Cree LeFavour. (Grove, $25.) This gritty account of a woman's struggle with self-abuse describes nearly gothic suffering. It is also a love story about a dedicated and gifted analyst and his difficult but equally gifted patient. Courageous and unsettling, LeFavour's memoir is infused with humor and wry insight as well as pain. THE LAST LAUGH, by Lynn Freed. (Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Three friends, nearing 70, decide to spend a year in Greece in this darkly, mordantly funny novel. There they encounter sexy locals and their angry wives, while people from their pasts keep turning up. HOUSMAN COUNTRY: Into the Heart of England, by Peter Parker. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30.) This critical biography attributes Housman's contemporary popularity to his ability to evoke a timeless countryside while England was becoming increasingly urban. THE CRIME WRITER, by Jill Dawson. (Harper Perennial, paper, $15.99.) Dawson's novel uses the life of Patricia Highsmith to probe the territory between reality and fantasy that so fascinated her. Told in both the first- and the third-person, it is full of pomo fun. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
